Bear received his award from the Thin Blue Paw Foundation for locating a missing man while on a walk (Image Thin Blue Paw Foundation)
Bear received his award from the Thin Blue Paw Foundation for locating a missing man while on a walk (Image Thin Blue Paw Foundation)
In a story which reminds us that heroes never really hang up their capes, a retired police dog in the UK saved a missing person on a walk.
The 12-year-old German Shepherd named Bear received the lifesaver award from the Thin Blue Paw Foundation, a charity that helps police dogs and which had previously partially paid for one of Bear’s surgeries.
It happened that on November 28th during a walk aimed at rehabilitating Bear’s stamina following surgery to remove some tumors, Bear’s sense of heroism was rehabilitated as well.
His owners, both retired officers themselves, had taken him to the South Downs—the beautiful green hills of southern England, to celebrate the pooch’s 12th birthday. Julia Pope, Bear’s owner, adopted him after a long career as a general police dog ended in 2020.
“Bear found several people during his working life who probably wouldn’t have survived without him, but he and his handler never got any recognition at the time because they were simply doing their job,” she told the Argus.
During their walk Bear led Julia and her husband Ian into deep brush where a man had fallen down. Wet, immobile, and confused, authorities were already looking for him when Bear found him.
Either the Thin Blue Paw Foundation, or Sussex Police Department got word that one of their former canines had performed an additional rescue post-service career, and Bear was recommended for the Lifesaver Award which was presented during a ceremony at Sussex HQ, something which Julia said was “completely unexpected.”
“For him to get this award now, in his retirement, and for his former handler, Iain, to have been there too, is very special. We’re all super proud of him.”
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The Danjiang Bridge - credit: negativ.com via Zaha Hadid Architects, released
The Danjiang Bridge – credit: negativ.com via Zaha Hadid Architects, released
2025 will see the completion of some amazing buildings, but few will hold the eye as well as the prestige of the Danjiang Bridge in Taiwan—one of the last projects ever overseen by the legendary Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid.
Dubbed “The Queen of Curves,” Hadid died in 2016, a year following the completion of the bridge’s design plans. It will be the longest single-span, single-mast, cable-stayed bridge in the world.
– credit: negativ.com via Zaha Hadid Architects, released
With the aim of reducing congestion along another bridge across the Tamsui River, the Danjiang Bridge will host dedicated pedestrian, cycling, and roadways, with room to expand a light rail network across its 3,000-foot-long deck.
The bridge seeks to minimize its visual impact on the still-natural estuarine surroundings by using a single concrete mast erected as slenderly as possible. Rising 200 meters—or around 620 feet, it will bear the strain of two separate lines of cables stretching along the span which will wrap around one side of the mast.
This is referred to as an asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge, and the mast’s placement has been selected to avoid interfering with views of the sunset, while also reducing the impact on both the sensitive estuary ecosystem and boat traffic.
– credit: negativ.com via Zaha Hadid Architects, released
According to the late Hadid’s architectural firm, the Danjian Bridge will reduce through traffic by 30% on an existing bridge upriver, helping to improve Taiwan’s northern coastal traffic network while also enhancing accessibility throughout the region with the Port of Taipei and Taoyuan International Airport.
Personally overseen by Hadid herself, it will be one of the last glimpses of her genius revealed to the world, before she enters fully the annals of the profession’s history.
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Traditional dance in El Salvador, an activity that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago - credit: President of El Salvador, via Flickr CC 1.0.
Traditional dance in El Salvador, an activity that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago – credit: President of El Salvador, via Flickr CC 1.0.
GNN has reported several times since the end of 2023 about falling violent crime rates across American cities. But the latest homicide statistics coming out of neighboring El Salvador are truly something to celebrate.
Put simply, the Bukele Administration has turned the country from the most murderous in Latin America to the safest, across a single 5-year term.
With a rate of 1.9 per 100,000 inhabitants and a total homicide count of 119 during 2024, El Salvador is safer than many major cities in America.
It represents a 98% drop over 9 years.
President Nayib Bukele took power in 2019 and has enjoyed the backing of a friendly legislature and supreme court that has granted him extraordinary executive powers to combat paramilitary-like street gangs that controlled parts of the country.
Since 2022, the country has been under a state of emergency, during which time 83,000 arrests were made, and national policing forces took the fight to the gangs. Constitutional rights were suspended in some cases, and many were charged and imprisoned without due process of law, something the administration has been criticized for.
It’s difficult to argue with the results, however, since in 2015, El Salvador witnessed 6,656 homicides, placing it among war zones as one of the most dangerous countries on the planet.
Residents of the capital San Salvador told AP News that they can safely walk the streets again, where before the gangs controlled the movement of people in and out of neighborhoods.
Riding an enormous wave of popularity, Bukele won his February 2024 reelection campaign at a canter.
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Everyone loves to watch hummingbirds—tiny, brightly colored blurs that dart about, hovering at flowers and pugnaciously defending their ownership of a feeder.
But to the scientists who study them, hummingbirds offer much more than an entertaining spectacle. Their small size and blazing metabolism mean they live life on a knife-edge, sometimes needing to shut down their bodies almost completely just to conserve enough energy to survive the night—or to migrate thousands of miles, at times across open ocean.
Their nectar-rich diet leads to blood sugar levels that would put a person in a coma. And their zipping, zooming flight sometimes generates g-forces high enough to make a fighter pilot black out. The more researchers look, the more surprises lurk within those tiny bodies, the smallest in the avian world.
“They’re the only bird in the world that can fly upside down and backwards,” says Holly Ernest, a conservation ecologist with the University of Wyoming. “They drink pure sugar and don’t die of diabetes.”
Ernest is one of a small number of researchers studying how hummingbirds cope with the extreme demands of their lifestyles. Here’s some of what scientists have learned about the unique adaptations of hummingbirds.
Put in the work
For years, most researchers had assumed that hummingbirds spent only about 30% of their day engaged in the energy-intensive business of flitting from flower to flower and guzzling nectar, while resting most of the other time. But when physiological ecologist Anusha Shankar looked closely, she found they’re often working a lot harder than that.
Shankar, now of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Hyderabad, India, tried to figure out how broad-billed hummingbirds in Southern Arizona spend their days. Using a mix of experimental methods, she measured the birds’ metabolic rate during various activities and estimated their total daily energy expenditure. Adding in previous published data, Shankar was able to calculate the per-minute energy cost of perching, flying, and hovering—basically a bird’s three options for spending time.
She then inferred how much time the birds must have spent feeding versus perching over the course of a day.
“We ended up finding that it’s super variable,” Shankar says. During the early part of the summer when flowers are abundant, birds could meet their daily energy needs with as little as a few hours of feeding, spending as much as 70% of the day just perching, she found. But when flowers became scarcer after the arrival of the summer monsoon rains, birds at one site perched just 20% of the time and used the rest of the day for feeding.
“That’s 13 hours a day!” Shankar says. “There’s no way I can spend 13 hours a day running. I don’t know how they do it.”
Seriously chill
Hummingbirds have a trick to help them eke out their energy reserves. When a bird is in danger of running out of energy, it may go torpid at night, dropping its body temperature nearly to that of the surrounding air—sometimes just a few degrees above freezing. While in torpor, the bird appears almost comatose, unable to respond quickly to stimuli, and breathing only intermittently. The strategy can save up to 95% of hourly metabolic costs during cold nights, Shankar has calculated. That can be essential after days when a bird has fed less than usual, such as after a thunderstorm. It also helps birds save energy to pack on fat before migration.
Shankar is now studying which parts of their physiology hummingbirds prioritize during torpor, by looking to see which gene products they can’t do without. “If you’re a hummingbird functioning at 10% of your normal metabolism, what is that 10% that’s keeping you alive?” she asks.
One set of genes that the birds seem to leave untouched are those responsible for their internal clock. “It’s important for them to do things at the right time when they’re in torpor,” Shankar says. To be ready to meet the day, for example, the birds begin to rouse from their torpor about an hour before sunrise, well before visible light cues.
A hummingbird hanging upside down – credit Matt Cummings CC 2.0. via Flickr
Deal with the sugar
To fuel their sky-high metabolic rate, hummingbirds suck down about 80% of their body weight in nectar each day. That’s the equivalent of a 150-pound person drinking nearly a hundred 20-ounce Cokes daily—and nectar is often much sweeter than a soda.
The human gut is incapable of absorbing sugar that fast, which is one reason why consuming too much soda or Halloween candy upsets the stomach, says Ken Welch, a comparative physiologist at the University of Toronto at Scarborough. Hummingbirds cope with the onslaught by having leaky guts so that sugars can enter the bloodstream between gut cells instead of only through them. This gets sugar out of the gut quickly, before it can cause upset. That rapid transport, and probably other adaptations as well, allows hummingbirds to reach blood sugar levels as much as six times higher than those seen in people, Welch says.
That much sugar in the blood leads to serious physiological problems in people. It causes more sugar molecules to glom onto body proteins, a process known as glycation; in the long run, excess glycation causes many of the complications of diabetes, such as nerve damage. It’s still unclear how hummingbirds avoid the problems of glycation, Welch says, but clues are beginning to emerge. One study, for example, found that bird proteins contain fewer of the amino acids most prone to glycation than mammal proteins, and those that remain are often tucked deep within the protein where they’re less exposed to circulating sugars.
Other, as yet unknown strategies to cope with high blood sugar may one day yield practical benefits for managing diabetes in people. “There could be a gold mine in the genome of the hummingbird,” says Welch.
Do a metabolic flip
By the end of its nightly fast, a hummingbird has nearly depleted its sugar stores—which poses an opposite metabolic challenge. “How does it wake up and fly?” Welch asks. “There’s nothing but fat available to burn.”
Hummingbirds have evolved to be remarkably nimble at switching their metabolism from sugar-burning to fat-burning, he has found. “This requires an enormous shift in the biochemical pathways that are involved,” Welch says—and it happens in mere minutes, far more quickly than other organisms can manage. “If we could have that kind of control over our fuel use, we’d love that.”
Sugar isn’t the only challenge posed by a nectar-rich diet. After all, nectar is mostly water—and birds that drink in so much liquid must get rid of most of it, without losing electrolytes. As a result, hummingbird kidneys are highly adapted to recapture electrolytes before they are excreted. “They pee almost distilled water,” says Carlos Martinez del Rio, an ecophysiologist now retired from the University of Wyoming.
But that brings a further problem: If a hummingbird kept producing dilute urine overnight, it would die of dehydration before morning. To avoid that, hummingbirds shut down their kidneys every night. “They go into what, in a human, would be considered acute renal failure,” says Martinez del Rio. “Hummingbirds have to do this, or they would [pee] themselves to death.”
Fly higher—gradually
The metabolic demands on a hummingbird are tough enough at sea level. But many species live at high elevations, where thin air contains less oxygen and offers less resistance to push against when hovering. Consider the giant hummingbird, the world’s largest, which can live in the Andes Mountains at elevations over 14,000 feet—higher than many helicopters can fly. To cope with these conditions, the birds have evolved more hemoglobin-rich blood, says Jessie Williamson, an ornithologist at Cornell University.
But some of the birds face an even steeper challenge, as Williamson found. Giant hummingbirds are large enough that researchers can attach satellite tracking tags, as well as smaller geolocators. So Williamson and her colleagues decided to fit the birds with trackers. After thousands of hours spent trying to capture birds with netting, the researchers managed to attach trackers to 57 birds using custom-made harnesses of elastic jewelry cord.
Though they recovered tracking data from only eight birds, even that tiny sample had a big surprise: Some of the birds lived in the high Andes year-round, while others—which turned out to be a separate, hitherto unrecognized species—migrate to the Andes annually from breeding grounds along the coast of Chile. That means they face not only the obvious challenges of a long migration—a round trip of roughly 5,000 miles—but also the need to adapt to thinner air as they travel.
Their secret? Do it gradually. “It looks a lot like how human mountaineers summit something like Mount Everest, with bursts of climbing and pauses to acclimatize,” Williamson says. “The journey takes months.”
As tracking technology becomes lighter and cheaper, researchers like Williamson hope to follow smaller hummingbird species as well. That, together with other progress in research technology, may offer plenty of new surprises about the biology of these tiny, amazing birds.
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Quote of the Day: “Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Photo by: Kevin Delvecchio
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
62 years ago today, Mutual of Omaha’s ‘Wild Kingdom’ was first broadcast on NBC. Hosted by American zoologist Marlin Perkins and filmed by Jim Fowler, the program won 4 Emmys for Outstanding Program Achievement during its original runnings on NBC every Sunday. ‘Wild Kingdom’ brought the wilds of the Amazon River, the Serengeti, and more into the living rooms of millions of Americans. Just recently, GNN reported on the successful launch of a third reboot of the show, hosted by Perkins’ eventual replacement, Peter Gros. WATCH an episode below… (1963)
People wanting to learn a new language should make sure they get plenty of sleep, suggests a new study.
Shut-eye is critical for all sorts of reasons, but an international team of scientists has discovered a new incentive for getting eight hours of sleep every night: it helps the brain to store and learn a new language.
The study, led by the University of South Australia, revealed that the coordination of two electrical events in the sleeping brain “significantly” improves our ability to remember new words and complex grammatical rules.
In an experiment with 35 native English-speaking adults, researchers tracked the brain activity of participants learning a miniature language called Mini Pinyin that is based on Mandarin but with similar grammatical rules to English.
Mini Pinyin contains 32 verbs and 25 nouns, including 10 human entities, 10 animals and five objects. Overall, the language contains 576 unique sentences.
Half of the participants learned Mini Pinyin in the morning and then returned in the evening to have their memory tested.
The other half learned Mini Pinyin in the evening and then slept in the laboratory overnight while their brain activity was recorded. Researchers tested their progress in the morning.
The results showed that the act of sleeping “significantly” aided the learning of the new language. Those who didn’t sleep between their lessons and their test performed much worse that the group who got to sleep after lessons, according to the findings published in the Journal of Neuroscience
Lead researcher Dr. Zachariah Cross says sleep-based improvements were linked to the coupling of slow oscillations and sleep spindles—brainwave patterns that synchronize during NREM sleep.
“This coupling likely reflects the transfer of learned information from the hippocampus to the cortex, enhancing long-term memory storage,” said Dr. Cross, who did his PhD at the University of South Australia but is now based at Northwestern University in the US.
“Post-sleep neural activity showed unique patterns of theta oscillations associated with cognitive control and memory consolidation, suggesting a strong link between sleep-induced brainwave co-ordination and learning outcomes.”
University of South Australia researcher Dr. Scott Coussens says the study underscores the importance of sleep in learning complex linguistic rules.
“By demonstrating how specific neural processes during sleep support memory consolidation, we provide a new perspective on how sleep disruption impacts language learning.
“Sleep is not just restful; it’s an active, transformative state for the brain.”
The researchers say their findings could also potentially inform treatments for people with language-related impairments—including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and aphasia—as these patients experience greater sleep disturbances than other adults.
Research on both animals and humans shows that slow oscillations improve neural plasticity, the brain’s ability to change and adapt in response to experiences and injury.
“From this perspective, slow oscillations could be increased via methods such as transcranial magnetic stimulation to accelerate aphasia-based speech and language therapy,” added Cross.
Ramnaresh Dubey finds two diamonds in his field – via SWNS
Ramnaresh Dubey finds two diamonds in his field – via SWNSge
A poor Indian farmer has seen his fortunes change in the blink of an eye after he found two diamonds worth almost $50,000 in his field.
Ramnaresh Dubey had been sifting through dirt at a shallow depth for the past six months—and his luck finally paid off with the remarkable find.
The two valuable stones—one weighing an astonishing 8.30 carats—were found in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
Mr. Dubey took the diamonds to be assessed by Indian government officials, who valued them together at $46,841 (£37,261).
Videos show the gleaming diamonds displayed on a tray at the diamond office, with the proud Mr. Dubey looking on.
Officials claimed both of the farmer’s diamonds were off-color, decreasing the market value. The small one weighed a little less than one carat.
The resident of the village called Ramkhiriya in the Panna district had to obtain permission to mine gemstones on his farmland—well worth the paperwork.
The 2 diamonds found in Indian farmer’s field – via SWNS
He intends to use the proceeds from the diamonds to buy land and open a shop, whilst continuing to mine for more gems.
Diamond officer Ravi Patel confirmed that the diamonds would be auctioned in an upcoming sale, with a royalty fee of 11.5 percent deducted from profits.
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Here’s an idea: get a jump on holiday decorating next year by dumpster-diving for brand new Christmas items headed for the landfills.
Melanie Diaz recovers the magic of the holidays from behind department stories, saving tons of money while helping the environment.
The dumpster diver says she has saved thousands of dollars by retrieving gifts, seasonal toys, wreaths, artificial trees, and ornaments from the trash bins behind Michaels and TJ Maxx.
A resident of Tampa, Florida, she’s spent the past two years dumpster diving in December and January to uncover discarded holiday treasures that would otherwise go to the landfill.
“It is my favorite time going dumpster diving at the end of the year because they start throwing out a lot of Christmas stuff,” said the 22-year-old.
“I love saving everything so I can put it in my house and decorate it for the next year.”
She also visits the dumpsters behind popular retailers like Burlington, Jo-Ann Stores, Pop Shelf, and Home Goods.
SWNS
Some of her biggest jackpots happen in January, when stores begin clearing out their leftover holiday inventory.
“I went dumpster-diving at the TJ Maxx store, and I found a lot,” Diaz explained. “It was full to the top.”
SWNSMelanie Diaz / SWNS
From ten wreaths salvaged at Michael’s—worth approximately $400—to $500 Christmas trees, Diaz has curated a festive collection.
She’s also retrieved puzzles and dog toys from TJ Maxx, saving around $200, and countless other holiday staples, including advent calendars and stockings.
The abundance was so overwhelming, Diaz had to enlist help. “I even had to bring my family to help me because it was too much,” she recalled.
“I remember we took everything into cars, and the next day we did a garage sale. We also kept most of the stuff. It was incredible.”
Play-Doh advent calendars – Melanie Diaz / SWNS
Her discoveries also include festive clothing and kitchenware.
And it’s not just about saving money and helping the environment. Diaz enjoys sharing her finds with others: “I love giving stuff to my friends and to my family.”
Quote of the Day: “Comparison is the thief of joy.” – Theodore Roosevelt
Photo by: Nick Fancher for Unsplash+ (cropped)
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
The Large Staircase of The Garnier Opera, in Paris - credit CC 3.0. BY-SA Benh Lieu Song.
150 years ago today was the inauguration show of the Garnier Opera in Paris, one of the most famous of its kind in all Europe. Built by Charles Garnier at the behest of Napoleon III, it was renamed the Palais Garnier for its extraordinary opulence, a characteristic demonstrable by the 91 photographs of its exterior and interior on its Wikipedia page, double the number of images for the Wikipedia page of Africa. It was the primary theatre of the Paris Opera and its associated Paris Opera Ballet until 1989 when it was replaced by the Opéra Bastille. READ more about this famous building… (1875)
Artist’s illustration of a neutron star emitting radio beam from its magnetic environment that splits into multiple paths and looks like flickering from a distance – Credit: Daniel Liévano / MIT News
Artist’s illustration of a neutron star emitting radio beam from its magnetic environment that splits into multiple paths and looks like flickering from a distance – Credit: Daniel Liévano / MIT News
Mysterious radio bursts from outer space first discovered in 2007, last only a millisecond but can carry an enormous amount of energy—enough to briefly outshine entire galaxies.
Since that first fast radio burst, or FRB, astronomers have detected thousands more, whose locations range from within our own galaxy to as far as 8 billion light-years away—yet, exactly how these brief and brilliant explosions were launched had remained a highly-contested unknown.
Now, astronomers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have pinned down the origin of at least one of these cosmic radio flares using a novel technique that could do the same for other FRBs.
In their new study, published this week in the journal Nature, the team focused on a previously discovered fast radio burst that was detected from a galaxy about 200 million light-years away.
They zeroed in to determine the precise location of the radio signal by analyzing its “scintillation,” which is similar to how stars twinkle in the night sky.
The scientists studied changes in the FRB’s brightness and determined that the burst must have originated from the immediate vicinity of its source, rather than much further out, as some models have predicted.
The fleeting fireworks known as FRB 20221022A exploded from a region that is extremely close to a rotating neutron star, up to 10,000 kilometers away—less than the distance between New York and Singapore.
At such close range, the burst likely emerged from the neutron star’s magnetosphere—a highly magnetic region immediately surrounding the extremely compacted star.
The team’s findings provide the first conclusive evidence that a FRB can originate from the magnetosphere immediately surrounding an ultracompact object, such as a neutron star or possibly a black hole.
“In these environments of neutron stars, the magnetic fields are really at the limits of what the universe can produce,” said the study’s lead author Kenzie Nimmo, a postdoc in MIT’s Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. “There’s been a lot of debate about whether this bright radio emission could even escape from that extreme plasma.”
“Around these highly magnetic neutron stars, also known as magnetars, atoms can’t exist — they would just get torn apart by the magnetic fields,” says Kiyoshi Masui, associate professor of physics at MIT.
“The exciting thing here is, we find that the energy stored in those magnetic fields, close to the source, is twisting and reconfiguring such that it can be released as radio waves that we can see halfway across the universe.”
Detections of FRBs have soared since 2020, thanks to the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME).
The radio telescope array comprises four large, stationary receivers, each shaped like a half-pipe, that are tuned to detect radio emissions within a range that is highly sensitive to fast radio bursts.
The exact physics driving the FRBs have remained unclear. Some models predict that the should come from the turbulent magnetosphere immediately surrounding a compact object, while others predict that the bursts should originate much further out, as part of a shockwave that propagates away from the central object.
To determine where FRBs arise, the MIT team considered scintillation, the effect that occurs when light from a small bright source such as a star, filters through some medium, such as a galaxy’s dense gas.
As the starlight filters through the gas, it bends in ways that make it appear, to a distant observer, as if the star is twinkling. The smaller or the farther away an object is, the more it twinkles.
The light from larger or closer objects, such as planets in our own solar system, experience less bending, and therefore do not appear to twinkle.
The team reasoned that if they could estimate the degree to which an FRB scintillates, they might determine the relative size of the region from where the FRB originated. The smaller the region, the closer in the burst would be to its source, and the more likely it is to have come from a magnetically turbulent environment. The larger the region, the farther the burst would be, giving support to the idea that FRBs stem from far-out shockwaves.
To test their idea, the researchers looked to FRB 20221022A, a signal that lasts about two-thousandths of one second, which is average for FRBs, in terms of its brightness.
Collaborators at McGill University in Canada found that it exhibited one standout property: The light from the burst was highly polarized, with the angle of polarization tracing a smooth S-shaped curve.
The pattern is interpreted as evidence that the FRB emission site is rotating—a characteristic previously observed in pulsars, which are highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars.
This is a first for FRBs, suggesting that the signal may have arisen from the close-in vicinity of a neutron star.
The MIT team realized that if FRB 20221022A originated from close to a neutron star, they should be able to prove this, using scintillation.
Dr. Nimmo and her colleagues analysed data from CHIME and observed steep variations in brightness that signalled scintillation — in other words, the FRB was twinkling.
They confirmed that there is gas somewhere between the telescope and FRB that is bending and filtering the radio waves.
The team then determined where the gas could be located, confirming that gas within the FRB’s host galaxy was responsible for some of the scintillation observed. The gas acted as a “natural lens” – allowing the researchers to zoom in on the FRB site and determine that the burst originated from an extremely small region, estimated to be about 10,000 kms wide.
“This means that the FRB is probably within hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the source,” said Nimmo. “That’s very close. For comparison, we would expect the signal would be more than tens of millions of kilometers away if it originated from a shockwave, and we would see no scintillation at all.”
“Zooming in to a 10,000-kilometer region, from a distance of 200 million light years, is like being able to measure the width of a DNA helix, which is about 2 nanometers wide, on the surface of the moon,” Dr. Masui said.
The findings prove for the first time that FRBs can originate from very close to a neutron star, in highly chaotic magnetic environments.
“These bursts are always happening, and CHIME detects several a day,” Masui added. “There may be a lot of diversity in how and where they occur, and this scintillation technique will be really useful in helping to disentangle the various physics that drive these bursts.”
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Sophie the cat reunited after 7 years with Glenn Stupar's daughter – Photos by Glenn Stupar
Sophie the cat (before and after) was reunited with Glenn Stupar’s daughter 7 years later – Photos by Glenn Stupar
All his 14-year-old daughter Keisha wanted for Christmas was a cat. So in 2014 her dad Glenn Stupar adopted a beautiful calico from a local animal rescue in Edmonton, Canada.
The family renamed her Sophie and she lived happily in the their apartment for three years, until the fluffy feline escaped from the balcony.
It was days before Christmas, and they searched and searched but never found her.
Now, 7 years later—and days before Christmas—the family, including Keisha’s fiance, were sitting around reminiscing about the cat when they received a phone call from Community Cats Edmonton.
Sophie had been found living outside a car wash just 3 miles from their home.
Car wash employees and a couple living nearby, had been feeding the cat for more than a year—and the nonprofit group had spent months attempting to capture the wily creature. Finally they succeeded.
They checked to see if the cat had a microchip—the existence of which the family was unaware—and they soon were all reunited after thinking their fur-ball was gone forever.
World Plogging Championship 2023-By Stefano Jeantet (press release)
World Plogging Championship 2023-By Stefano Jeantet (press release)
An eco-friendly fitness trend that started in 2016 is now growing in popularity with its own world championship competition in Italy.
Originating in Sweden, when Erik Ahlström began picking up litter while jogging in Stockholm, the term is a combination of the Swedish word plocka, which means “to pick up”, and the English word “jogging”.
The activity of picking up litter while on your outdoor jog, has spread to other countries, and now an estimated 2 million people ‘plog’ regularly in over 100 countries.
The workout adds bending, squatting, and stretching to the main action of running—with ‘pliking’ being the latest offshoot for hikers who want to clean up the trail.
The third annual World Plogging Championship in 2023, resulted in approximately 6,600 pounds of litter (3,000 kg) removed from the environment around the city of Genoa.
Later this year, a British team will be traveling to the competition with the goal of running the farthest and picking up the most rubbish.
World Plogging Championship 2023
Claire Petrie recently kick-started her training with community events in her hometown of Bristol.
“I love that you help the environment, the planet and meet new people,” said the 48-year-old personal trainer who became passionate about combining health and the environment.
“We want to grow plogging in as many cities as possible.”
Claire Petrie trains for plogging on the Great Britain team –via SWNS
The four members of the Great Britain team include Cherrelle Amo and Luke Douglas-Home, from London, and Chris Broadbent, from Devon, who have launched their training with community events in London and Exeter.
Supported by environmental organizations, A Future Without Rubbish and Planet Earth Games, the team is encouraging members of the public to get involved, regardless of their fitness levels.
“We advertise it all on Facebook where we tell everyone where to meet,” Claire told SWNS news.
“We run 2k and then we stop and litter pick a certain area and then we leave all the bags by the bins–and then we run back,” said Claire, who then contacts the local council to collect the bags.
“It is very enjoyable and we make sure everyone is welcomed.”
During the past year, Claire’s group, which plans to expand into other areas in Bristol but currently has an average of 9 people joining in, collected 220 pounds of trash (100 kg).
Since 2021, the World Plogging Championships have taken place on paved paths and roads according to the principles of trail and mountain running. After their 2023 event, they reported keeping 6 million grams of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere by correctly separating and recycling the waste they collected.
Luke, who is founder of A Future Without Rubbish, has been plogging for many years, covering the UK’s coastline and canals.
Claire Petrie plogging group in Bristol England – via SWNS
“Collecting rubbish and putting it in the bin is a tiny action – something we can all do, and it’s this idea of working together than has such an impact,” said Luke. “It’s not just about running; it’s about making a tangible positive long-term impact on our planet.”
Chris, who founded Planet Earth Games, hosts monthly plogging events and confirms that the British team will keep the competition as green as possible by avoiding air travel and, instead, taking the train to Genoa.
“People are looking for a way to contribute to a healthier environment and plogging is the perfect activity to make an immediate impact and support your own physical and mental wellbeing with like-minded people.”
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY – Week of January 4, 2025
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
You’re the most pragmatic sign of the zodiac and are most highly skilled at getting constructive things done. It’s also true that you thrive on organizing the chaotic details of our messy world into smooth-functioning systems. But I periodically need to remind you that these superpowers of yours require you to nurture a vigorous and rigorous imagination. So much of what you ultimately accomplish originates in the fantasy realm. This will be especially crucial for you to keep in mind during 2025.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
The Mona Lisa is a world-famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Beneath its visible surface is evidence that the artist reworked it extensively. There are at least three earlier versions with different facial features. In one, the figure has eyebrows and is wearing hairpins and a headdress. These details were scrubbed out of the image that now hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris. I bring this to your attention, Aquarius, because I suspect you have been engaged in a comparable process as you’ve worked on your labor of love. In my reckoning, you’re finished with your false starts, practice runs, and dress rehearsals. In the coming months, you can make excellent progress toward ripening and culminating your creation.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Ancient Greek literature references a drug called nepenthe. Anyone who ingested it would forget memories that stirred pain and sorrow. Many of us modern people might consider taking such medicine if it were available. But let’s imagine a very different potion: one that arouses vivid memories of all the wonderful experiences we have been blessed with. If there were such a thing, I would recommend that you sample it frequently in the months to come. That’s because your relationship with the good parts of your past will be especially useful and inspirational. In fact, drawing on their power will be instrumental in helping you create your best possible future.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
There are experiences, people, and places that can either be good for you or bad for you. Which way they tilt at any particular time may depend on your mood or their mood or forces beyond your immediate control. An example for me is social media. Sometimes it’s a mediocre drug that dulls my sensibilities and aggravates my fears. On other occasions, it brings rich connections and teaches me lessons I’m thrilled to learn. What about you, Aries? In my astrological view, 2025 will be a time when you will be wise to re-evaluate and redefine your relationships with these paradoxical resources. If there are some whose influence is far more likely to be bad than good, consider ending your bond. For those that are equally bad and good, do what you can do to enhance the goodness.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
Taurus supermodel Linda Evangelista has supreme levels of self-esteem. At the height of her career, she bragged that she got out of bed each morning with the intention of earning no less than $10,000 in the coming day. I’m not advocating that you be equally audacious in your expectations during 2025, dear Taurus. But it’s reasonable for you to adopt at least a measure of Evangelista’s financial confidence. According to my analysis of your destiny, cosmic rhythms will be conspiring to open up economic opportunities for you.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
I invite you to make ample use of at least five of the following eleven tactics during 2025: 1. Shatter the mold. 2. Defy the conventions. 3. Challenge the norms. 4. Redefine the boundaries. 5. Disrupt the status quo. 6. Defy old rules and create new ones. 7. Go against the flow and against the grain. 8. Bushwhack through frontiers. 9. Dance to unfamiliar rhythms. 10. Search for curious treasures. 11. Change the way you change.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Good advice for the first half of 2025: 1. Lose your respect for tangled complications that have begun to rot. 2. Keep some of your necessary protective defenses, yes, but shed those that no longer serve you and are weighing you down. 3. Bury a broken-down dream to make room in your heart for a sweet new dream. 4. Scour away as much resentment as you can. 5. Sneak away from people and situations that are too demanding. 6. Discard as much as you can of what’s inessential, unhelpful, and defunct. 7. Don’t make a radical break for freedom yet, but begin plotting to do so by your birthday.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
The coming months will be an excellent time to dream up bigger, better, more original sins and seek out wilder, more interesting problems. You should experiment with being sweetly wicked as you uplift your spirit and deepen your love for life. You are being invited by your future self to experiment with daring departures from tradition that bring you exciting challenges. Dear Leo, may you be cheerfully courageous as you become both smarter and wiser than you have ever been before.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
Aztecs were originally known as the Mēxihcah people. Before they forged an empire, they were semi-nomadic tribes. But even then, early on, they were guided by a prophecy that they would eventually settle permanently in a place where they found an eagle roosting on a cactus holding a snake in its talons. In 1325, wanderers spied this precise scenario on a small island in Lake Texcoco. Soon they began to construct the city of Tenochtitlan, the capital of their future kingdom. I bring this true myth to your attention, Virgo, because I want to invite you to formulate a similar prophecy—and then fulfill it in 2025. Your personal empire is primed for expansion and consolidation.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
As 2025 unfolds, your burdens will grow lighter, and your duties will become more interesting. Joyless missions and trivial hopes will be increasingly irrelevant and easy to relinquish, opening up opportunities for fresh assignments that motivate you to play more and to work smarter rather than harder. During the coming months, dear Libra, I predict you will be basking in extra good karma and tapping into more fertile mojo than you have in a long time. Would you like more freedom than ever before? It’s yours for the plucking.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
Painter P. K. Mahanandia is well-known because of his fine art. He is even more famous for an amazing adventure he had in the name of love. It’s a long story, but his wife was living in her native Sweden while he was stuck in his native India. Mahanandia was still at an early stage of his career and couldn’t afford to fly by plane. Instead, he bought a used bicycle and headed west, covering about 27 miles per day. He pedaled through Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey until he arrived in Europe 127 days later. He had raised money by drawing portraits of people he met along the way, so he had enough to travel by train the rest of the way to Sweden. I’m thinking you may have an epic romantic adventure yourself in 2025, Scorpio. Maybe not quite as extreme, but very interesting.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
To symbolize your destiny in 2025, I drew a Tarot card. It was the 9 of Cups. Here’s my four-part interpretation: 1. Sometime soon, you should identify your top desires and ruminate about how to express them in the most beautiful and fulfilling ways possible. 2. Take a vow that you will shed half-hearted, insecure approaches for bringing them to fruition. 3. Be uninhibited about seeking not just a partial but a complete version of each fulfillment. 4. Figure out which allies you will need in your life to manifest the happiest and most meaningful outcomes.
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Quote of the Day: “Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes travel the world looking for it.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
Photo by: Austin Distel
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15 years ago today, the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, officially opened in Dubai. Taking the crown from the Taipei 101 building in Taiwan’s capital, the Burj Khalifa has been the tallest building and structure on Earth since 2009, a year before it was even finished. Burj Khalifa was designed by a team led by Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the firm that designed the Sears Tower in Chicago, a previous record holder for the world’s tallest building. READ more… (2010)
A Utah student decided to dedicate her master’s thesis to the pursuit of getting a historic piece of land art inscribed on the National Registry of Historic Places.
Succeeding on all fronts, ‘Spiral Jetty,’ the famous creation on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, becomes the first feature of the Land Art movement to make it onto the registry.
Getting a property placed on the registry, which protects places of historic significance to America—such as Waldon Pond in Massachusetts—requires permission from the site’s owner or caretaker, and was one of several tasks that Amy Reid, who now holds a master’s degree in landscape architecture from Utah State University, had to accomplish.
Spiral Jetty is a testament to creator Robert Smithson’s enduring fascination with entropy, a statement from the Dia Art Foundation which manages the site explains.
Smithson created the earthwork in the spring of 1970 at Rozel Point, on the northeastern shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake. Constructed from 6,650 tons of rock and earth gathered directly from the site, the spiral continuously changes form as nature, industry, and time take effect.
A short time after it was completed, the level of the lake rose, and the work was submerged. Over the years it’s re-emerged and been sunk again and again, but since 1997 has always been visible.
Not native to the state, Reid has lived in Utah for the last 15 years, and learned about the Spiral Jetty work from her sister who visited it in 2002 whilst studying art at UC Berkeley. It took several months of work contacting the Dia Foundation, the Utah Department of Natural Resources, and the Holt/Smithson Foundation to explain her mission and gather critical details about the history of the sculpture and its maker.
Unrelated to the famous James Smithson whose endowment created the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, Robert and collaborator/wife Nancy Holt were pioneers in the Land Art Movement of the 1960s and 70s. Smithson liked to see in his works something of a dialectic between man and nature.
For this he didn’t like the idea of a work to be permanent or protected. He enjoyed grit, imperfections, and decay, and Reid says her thesis project isn’t about protecting the Jetty forever.
“It really is to provide a formal record of this site in a way that has not been done before,” she told the Salt Lake Tribune in a feature story on the site’s designation.
“For history, for the record, we now have a very complete view of the landscape, the natural forces, the man-made impacts on the landscape—all these things that influenced Smithson to choose this site.”
In a statement, Jessica Morgan, Director of the Dia Art Foundation, said that she and her colleagues are “delighted” the Spiral Jetty has received the important recognition, which “will help us spread awareness of the iconic artwork and advocate for its long-term preservation.”
“In the fifty-four years that Spiral Jetty has existed, it has been both submerged by the Great Salt Lake and stood far from the lake front, bearing witness to the changing landscape around it,” Morgan wrote.
“Beloved in Utah and far beyond, this artwork has come to mean many things to many people, and we are proud to continue our work caring and advocating for Spiral Jetty to preserve it for generations to come.”
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In a mouse model of contact dermatitis, preventive application of a cream containing SYM2081 (right image) reduced skin swelling compared to placebo (left image). – credit: Daniel Kaplan / SWNS
A new way of treating common inflammatory skin conditions such as eczema is on the horizon, according to a new study.
American researchers discovered that a compound called SYM2081 inhibited certain cells that drive inflammation in mice and human skin samples.
They say it paves the way for new treatments to prevent itching, hives, and other symptoms of skin conditions—such as eczema and rosacea—driven by mast cells.
Rosacea is a long-term skin condition that mainly affects the face. It may cause acne-like pimples, broken blood vessels, skin thickening, and facial flushing.
“I’m really excited about the clinical possibilities of this research,” said study senior author Professor Daniel Kaplan, of the University of Pittsburgh. “Currently, there aren’t a lot of good therapies that target mast cells, so we think that our approach could potentially have huge benefits in many skin conditions, including rosacea, eczema, urticaria, and mastocytosis.”
He explained that mast cells are filled with tiny granules “brimming” with histamine and other compounds that act as signals or activators of inflammatory pathways. When mast cells are activated, the granules spill open, releasing compounds that trigger a suite of immune responses.
Kaplan says the process—known as degranulation—is essential for protection against threats such as bee venom, snake bites, and pathogenic bacteria, but erroneous activation of mast cells also triggers allergic reactions, including swelling, hives, itching, and in severe cases, anaphylaxis, according to the findings published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
In a previous paper, Kaplan and his team found that neurons in the skin release a neurotransmitter called glutamate that suppresses mast cells. When they deleted the neurons or inhibited the receptor that recognizes glutamate, mast cells became hyperactive, leading to more inflammation.
“This finding led us to wonder if doing the opposite would have a beneficial effect,” he said. “If we activate the glutamate receptor, maybe we can suppress mast cell activity and inflammation.”
To test the hypothesis, the research team looked at a compound called SYM2081, or 4-methylglutamate, which activates a glutamate receptor called GluK2 found almost exclusively on mast cells.
They found that SYM2081 effectively suppressed mast cell degranulation and proliferation in both mice and human skin samples. When the mice received a topical cream containing SYM2081 before the induction of rosacea or eczema-like symptoms, skin inflammation and other symptoms of disease were much milder.
A daily cream containing a GluK2-activating compound could therefore be a promising way to prevent rosacea and other inflammatory skin conditions.
“Although there are excellent therapies available for different types of rosacea, many are antibiotic-based and they only target some of the symptoms. There are no good therapies for flushing, so this is a significant unmet need,” said Kaplan.
Now that the research team has shown proof-of-concept of their approach, they hope to engineer new GluK2-activating compounds that could eventually be tested in clinical trials.
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Pat Surtain gives football to boy in stands – Credit: Denver Broncos / Twitter
Pat Surtain gives football to boy in stands – Credit: Denver Broncos / Twitter
A young boy who had his dream snatched away by a stadium security guard has reason to cheer again after officials eventually returned his game ball.
Even though Levi Still’s father has been a lifelong Cincinnati Bengals fan, his son somehow ended up devoted to the Denver Broncos.
This year for Christmas, Levi received a Patrick Surtain II jersey and tickets to the next Bengals game—against the Broncos.
It was mild weather on game day, during which the visitors took the home team into overtime, with Surtain II recovering a fumble in the fourth quarter to the delight of Levi, wearing his name on the back of his shirt.
Though the Broncos fell in overtime, Levi had plenty to cheer for, as after the final whistle he received a surprise.
“All of a sudden, we see Pat Surtain walking to us. We just freaked out and he ended up handing [Levi] the football,” said Tracey Ewing, Levi’s mom.
But as they were getting ready to leave the stadium, security guards said it belonged to the NFL and under no circumstances—childhood dreams included—could it be allowed to leave. Devastated, Ewing took to Facebook and X to try and find a solution.
“The only thing I knew to do was go to social media and try to get my boy’s ball back,” she said.
Just now seeing this… Before the game yesterday I gave away a game ball to a little kid. Just for it to be taken away from him if anybody can put me in contact with the kid and his family hmu asap !!
Word even reached Pat Surtain, whose help would fortunately not be required, as Ewing told WCPO 9 Cincinnati that on Sunday morning, one of the security guards reached out.
“He instant messaged me and just said he, you know, [sic] the steps that he had taken to get it verified and to make sure he could have it, and then he reached out,” Ewing said.
“I felt happy because I thought I was never going to get it back,” Levi said after their family made a little road trip down to Paycor Stadium for the recovery.
WATCH the story below…
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